Vienna Calling

So I know I have been slacking on writing my Austria post, my apologies. For those of you who don't know, I went to Vienna Austria on February 8th until the 12th to see my good friend Gabriela, who did an exchange at the Mount last semester. My journey there was relatively smooth. I did, however, have to deal with an extremely rude French lady and what seemed to be a bomb precaution at the Paris airport. No worries though, all turned out fine! After 2 hours on the plane, I landed in Vienna and was warmly greeted by Gabriela. We were both hungry so we grabbed some McDonalds (I had my first European BigMac haha) before we made our way to her friend's house in the city. I guess it's an Austrian tradition to offer people slippers when they come into your house because her friend had about half a dozen pairs of slippers just for guests. She said that her parents do the same thing. I think that's an awesome tradition haha. After settling in, we went to a club called Loco's. Loco's was something I had never experienced before. To start off, there was a smoking room, which I wasn't a big fan of. Second, from 7-8pm you could buy cocktails for a mere 0,50 euros! Crazy, hien (eh)? The drinks really only went up to 3,90 euros. I couldn't believe how cheap it was. Probably explains the crowd each night. Third and last, I couldn't believe how touchy everyone was. People didn't just push past you, they basically put both hands on you, picked you up, and moved you. Needless to say, I felt a big claustrophobic. Marcus, another Austrian who did his exchange at the Mount, met up with us and ended up hanging out at the apartment for a while which was nice! One thing I notice about my first day being there is that I am getting used to automatically using French sayings. I kept saying "pardon" and such to the Austrians. Guess I forgot I was in a German speaking country. The next day, Thursday, Gabriela and I went walking around the city. The first thing we did was go to Belvedere where I got to see the Gustav Klimt exhibit. We weren't supposed to take pictures but with the help of Gabriela, I managed to get a shot of The Kiss. The rest of the day was spent walking around, seeing the sights, and snacking. Vienna is a beautiful city which is great because it helped distract me from how cold it was! Once we got back to the house we thought it would be nice to have a quiet night so we just stayed in and watched a movie. Friday we got up and went straight to Schonbrunn which was absolutely beautiful! Inside Schonbrunn there is a huge zoo. Being the animal lover that I am, I of course wanted to go in. We spent a good 3 hours in it where we got to see a panda, a cheetah, elephants, a tiger, lions, etc. I had so much fun, the hours flew by. We then went back to Gabriela's friend's apartment to watch a movie and relax before going out for dinner. Around 6:50pm, we met the group of Erasmus (international students), from her school, which included Kelsey, another Mount student, and we went out to dinner. I got to try a wiener schnitzel which was delicious but too big to finish. After dinner we went back to her friend's apartment and had some drinks and played games with some other Austrians. My last day, Saturday, was spent touring the city and soaking it all in. I got to try sachertorte which is a popular chocolate cake in both Austria and Germany. It was yummy! That night, Gabriela and I went to another one of her friend's places to hang out and have some drinks but left early because we had to get up at 6am so I could go to the airport. We took the metro to get home and I had my first infamous creepy metro experience. While waiting for the train to pull up, there was a creepy guy hovering around us. I was telling Gabriela a story and I said something was scary and while we were stepping onto the train, we could hear the guy mocking me saying "scary... scary, scary." Gabriela then said something about how she doesn't like big cities for that reason, creepy people. That's when some girls started talking about us in German. I don't speak a word of German and I could tell they were talking about us so Gabriela turned to them and shocked them by speaking fluent German to them. I was glad she could put them in their place haha. Since the creeper kept hovering, we thought it best to switch cars at the next stop to avoid him. As soon as we switched cars, we walked from one awkward situation to another one. There was a homeless man crawling around on the floor and mumbling incoherent German. I couldn't help but laugh at our misfortune because we tried to get away from one thing and walked straight into another. Luckily, nothing amounted from either situation. After only getting 4 & 1/2 hours of sleep, it was back to the airport to head back to France. I was sad to have to say goodbye to Gabriela again but I knew she would be coming to visit me soon enough in Lille so it made it a little easier. My flight was a breeze, as I slept the whole time, but the train to Lille from Paris was a different story. I already had to wait 2 hours after I landed to catch my train and then it was delayed an hour. I was not impressed. It was nice to finally get back to my room so I could go to bed. Although I wanted to stay, France is much warmer than Austria, so I was happy for that upon my return!

Bisous!